Product images appear in the Product images carousel (labelled 1 in the above diagram), with the selected image expanded in the main image viewer (labelled 2 in the above diagram).
The Product Option definition determines whether the product can have images for each Child Reference. See the ‘Colour’ Product Option definition below, indicating the field that allows child images:
If the product option can have images, the system will allow you to load separate images for each option. In the example above, images of the product in each of the colours could be loaded into the respective child products. Then, when the customer selects a particular colour option in the product page, only the images for that colour child product are displayed in the carousel. The images change as the customer changes their selection.
However, if the product option does not have images or the product has no options, all images are loaded into the parent product and will appear regardless of the option selected.
When importing products, you can map product images to the fields ‘Product Image’, ‘Parent Product Image’ and ‘Child Product Image’. The choice you make determines whether just the parent product appears in search results or all child products appear and when the product is selected, whether the images change according to the selected option. Follow these rules to get the desired behaviour:
- If the product has no attributes (options) or attributes that do not have images (e.g. Size), then map all the images to the ‘Parent Product Images’ field.
- If the product has attributes that have images (i.e. Colour), then either:
- Map the option specific images to the ‘Child Product Image’ field and the general images to the ‘Parent Product Image’ field if you want just the parent product to show in search results.
- Map the option specific images to the ‘Child Product Image’ field and don’t map any images to the ‘Parent Product Image’ field if you want all child products to show in search results
or
Don’t map images to both ‘Product Image’ and ‘Child Product Image’ as the images mapped to the ‘Product Image’ field will be thrown away.
Don’t use ‘Parent Product Image'(s) without ‘Child Product Image'(s) for an attribute (option) that has images (i.e. Colour), as when the customer selects their option, there will be no images shown in the carousel – they will instead get the message “No Images Available”.